


no rest for the wicked

by brooklynnbros



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Catholic guilt like whoa, Matt Murdock Needs a Hug, failure - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 12:45:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6154149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brooklynnbros/pseuds/brooklynnbros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt Murdock can't save everyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no rest for the wicked

_Matt. Matt? Earth to Matt._

Yes? Sorry, Foggy. I didn’t– 

_I called you last night a couple times and you didn’t pick up. Are you alright?_

(No.) Been worse.

_Been better, too, huh._

A pause. 

_Do you want to talk about it?_

(Talking about it won’t help.) Not right now, Foggy. 

_Are you going to come into the office? Karen’s started to worry that you’ve gone AWOL on us, taking so many days off._

I’ll think about it. (I’m too tired I can’t think I can’t move everything hurts) 

_Okay. Just…take it easy, pal._

(That’s not really an option.) 

Click. 

— 

He shifts dazedly, ignoring the protests of his injuries; thread pulls at stretched-taut skin, stitches piecing together his body but leaving his mind scattered, free to wander. 

 _There was nothing you could do_.

A mere pittance for an excuse, a handful of words chanted by the comforters who cannot understand his burden, well-meaning but naive. He _could_ have done something. Why can’t they understand? No matter how much he tries, how much he suffers and bleeds, there’s always more to give, more of himself to expend and invest into every soul in this city. He will spread himself thin over the masses until there’s nothing left for himself except an aching, human-shaped bruise sitting on a couch in an empty apartment. 

_You can’t save everyone._

It will kill him, one day: this never-ending war comprised of one soldier, a tired, exhausted, blind soldier, against an entire army. Most people would call that suicide. But he’s not most people. He’s not anyone unless his energy is spent in helping someone else. Saving the innocent, bringing judgement to the wicked–it gives meaning, purpose. A tangible explanation for why he exists at all. Now, even that seems to be slipping from his grasp.

She had only been eleven or twelve, at the most. Her heartbeat was like a siren in his ears, forcing him to move faster, become more careless. He knew she was in danger, that the man leading away was _not_ her friend and there was no way she’d come out of this unharmed, if at all. She’d disappear into the streets and never be seen again; missing posters would appear for a few months and then slowly fade as everyone believed she was dead or forgot entirely; all the while she would be passed around between men twice her age, slowly assimilating into the city’s most lucrative market. 

His appearance sparked a reaction he could never have anticipated.

The knife the man carried was supposed to be used against him. That’s the way it worked. He showed up, bad guys attacked. They cared more about protecting themselves rather than their transport. 

It was never in the plan for the knife to slip between the girl’s collarbone and throat, for him to hear the severing of tendon and muscle, taste the smell of blood on his tongue and know that her heartbeat had already stopped. That he had failed. 

The devil inside him had reared its ugly head, and he had set it loose. But for what purpose? He didn’t kill the man, though every instinct screamed at him to remove a future enemy, to avenge the innocent, to carry out _justice_. All it served was to bloody his hands for one more night.

A hand clutching his side where the same knife had slashed open his ribs, he’d staggered back to his apartment. Sat in the living room unmasked, letting scarlet ooze over his fingers and onto the couch, warm and sticky. The pain served as a weak distraction from the turmoil in his head, a whirlpool of self-deprecation, guilt, and _I could have saved her I could have saved her why didn’t I save her._  

Eventually, he called Claire, but couldn’t remember what he said afterward, or if he’d even been coherent. She came anyway, patched him up, recognizing that he wasn’t interested in talking. She left, and the apartment suddenly felt huge, a vast open space in which he was drifting, aimlessly. 

He clenches his fists, nails cutting crescent-shaped marks into his skin. The sting grounds him for a moment, enough for him to notice that it’s late morning and he hasn’t slept for over twenty-four hours. Eating is an equally distant memory, punctuated by the complaints of an empty stomach. 

He doesn’t want to eat. How can he, when there’s a little girl who will never taste again, but sleep for an eternity beneath earth and stone because he, the man without fear, was _not enough_.

It never occurs to him that, perhaps, the weight of the entire city is too much for one human being to carry.


End file.
